Feb 21, 2008

discrimination against Haredim

According to Chabad OnLine, MK Moshe Gafni (UTJ) revealed the above, secret, letter in the Knesset Committee for Education.

The letter is from the Ministry of Education to the Administrators of Institutions of Training for Haredi Education. The letter says, "As per the instructions of Ms. Ofra Bartov, the Senior Assistant responsible for salary agreements in the Finance Ministry, the group agreement regarding salaries that was signed on January 10, 2008 regarding implementation of Stage 1 of the education reform does not apply to educational institutions and training institutions in the Haredi Educational System.

Therefore, the agreed increase of 4.5% will not be paid to the teachers staff in your system.

The advance payment that was transferred to you in January for the above mentioned increase, will be deducted from February payments."

The background to this is an agreement that was agreed upon between the Ministry of Education and University Professors. the letter says that the decision is that it applies only to the University Professors, but not to those in the Haredi system.

The problem with this is the legal status of the Haredi educators and institutions. According to the law, as per Gafni's research, the Haredi institutions are given the same exact status as the secular and national Religious institutions.

in the Committees discussion, when Gafni pulled out the letter, nobody had an answer, either from the Finance Minsitry or from the Education Ministry, as to why Haredi institutions are suddenly being excluded from the agreement.

According to BaKehilla, supposedly people in the Finance Ministry had even approached Gafni in advance of the meeting and requested that he not expose the letter. They had promised that if he does not expose the letter, they would re-evaluate the decision.

Gafni obviously chose to expose it despite the promise (which probably would have gotten nothing), and now it has been leaked out to the public. So we can all see how the Haredi system is discriminated against, seemingly with no basis.

2 comments:

I don't understand how she could put her name on a letter, copy it to all those people, and hope it wouldn't get out. Especially when it was sent to the head of the system adversly affected by the decision.

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About Me

I am a regular Joe with a Yeshiva background. I learned in Telshe Yeshiva, Heichal HaTorah (R' Tzvi Kushelevsky), and a now defunct Halacha Kollel. I have semicha from R' Zalman Nechemia Goldberg and kaballa in Shechita from Dayan Schwartz of Kehillas HaYeraim (Chomas HaKashrus). I have a college degree in Finance from Touro College and am also a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer.
My wife and I, with our 8 children, ben porat yosef (knayna hara), live in Eretz Yisrael.